Using “The Other Three” in Social Recruiting

Known as the “Big Three”: LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook have led the way in social recruiting. It makes sense, connections are simple to make, there are vast pools of data to be collected and these are where internet users are spending massive amounts of their time. While the Big Three are the place to be, there are new social media hubs popping up on the regular. “The Other Three”, Pinterest, Instagram and Vine look to be what’s up next in social recruiting, and here is how the leaders are doing it.

Taco Bell is Using Pinterest

As if we needed another reason to love Taco Bell, the “Experience Taco Bell” pinterest page gives us several more. They’re kind of killing it when it comes to using funny, thoughtful and compelling images to convey their company culture. They pretty much cover it all:

Marriott has been leading the way in creating a stellar employer brand on Instagram with their dedicated “Marriott Careers” page. Their “Find Your World” motto only adds to their inspiring careers page, dedicated to their happy employees. Here’s what you will find:

-Pictures of smiling employees with a note about the company and how long they have been with Marriott.

They have created a very branded and positive feel to their Instagram careers page. Their “Where I Belong” campaign is an effective way of attracting talent that wishes to get and stay engaged at work. Start using Instagram for Instattraction.

Aviary is Using Vine

This photo editor app creator, Aviary is using this six-second video app to attract, inform and direct candidates. They also do a great job at displaying a fun, inventive and lively company culture. You will catch several things in this ultra-quick job ad.

-Clips of real employees.

-What positions they are hiring for, and quick details.

-They direct candidates to their website.

-They have shared this Vine across all of their social channels for optimal reach.

Each of these sites has one very powerful thing in common –the strong use of visuals. When we consider that the average attention span online in 2012 was 8 seconds, we realize that we need every tool possible to make those few seconds count. Because visuals are processed 60,000x faster in the brain than text, they might be a fantastic place to start.

“The Other Three” are great social sites to leverage the power of visuals in your own social recruiting efforts. Please use these examples to inspire your team and workforce in creating and displaying their company culture. Creating a campaign like the ones we’ve seen here, takes little time and effort, but packs a powerful return in reach and attraction.

Indeed, Greg. If a boss wants to pay me to make relationships with these "maybe/maybe not down-the-road" types, that's fine. It's just unrealistic to make me responsible for putting butts in chairs NOW and do that, too. I plan to keep working, but not necessarily with my current client- in 3,6, or12 months: I might be gone, the boss might gone, the company might be gone, and in any case the req. SHOULD be gone.

Your boss is paying you to make those relationships Keith.. assuming you are not on commission only. Its called sourcing, a key part of a recruiters job. What you are expressing is the short-termism that pervades our industry and makes us both transactional and increasingly irrelevant. Avoiding the key requirement to build and connect with a community of people you can place in the future becuase "your boss might be gone, you might be gone, or the company might be gone" is like not saving for your retirement because "you might be dead". Likelihood is you wont be dead.. just starving. Same for recruiters.

@ Greg. Thank you, again. Essentially, anyone recruiting contractors/temps, and many of us hiring people FT are in the situation where we say: "If you have time to develop relationships, you don't have enough reqs." If you are developing a recruiting niche or are in a field with an ongoing need for the same types of people over a long time-period, it makes sense to develop those relationships, but that’s not my world…

There is one type of person whom I believe ALL recruiters should cultivate relationships with: the person who can hire and pay them.

As far as being “transactional vs. strategic” I LOVE being strategic, but there isn’t much call for that. Most employers don’t want/need someone to improve their recruiting processes and create good talent pipelines and communities- they want someone to help them hire the very best people out there (who are usually better than what they can realistically expect to hire), and do it NOW.

I don't advocate that we recruiters "make hay while the sun shines," rather, I feel we should "unleash our Inner CEOs": go after everything beneficial we can get at a company (money, training, benies, SWAG, etc.) and get out before it all comes tumbling down around us. As another saying goes: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going. The smart left a long time ago."

Thanks again, Greg. As a contract recruiter for nearly 20 years, I get out and go back in again somewhere else, or sometimes the same place. I may not be smart enough to "time the market", but it's worked for me so far...